Simple Things Steady In My Heart
by PurpleYin
Summary: Written for Day 2 of DCTVGen Valentine's event and the prompt "domestic" - character insights for the Legends (almost all of them across the planned 3 chapters) related to doing chores and getting on with the more mundane aspects of life aboard the Waverider. Much angst ahoy.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Written for Day 2 of dctvgen's Gen Valentine's event over on tumblr and the prompt "domestic". Spoilers up to S4 overall for characters. Warning for canonical character death mentioned and some grief/mourning included.

This started out as a 'Legends do their favourite (or least hated) chores' fic but ended up about 80% angst and maybe 20% sort of good feels. Hope it's enjoyed anyhow. :) Two more chapters to be posted across the next week. Thanks to unwittingcatalyst for betareading.

* * *

For Ray, most of his best ideas come to him when he does the dishes. There's something about the repetitiveness that sets him at ease, allows his mind to relax as he scrubs the brush on a pan or wipes a cloth over a plate. Everything is okay when you're doing the dishes. The task has an order to it, so the world feels like it has an order to it.

Washing dishes gave him his first feeling of responsibility when his parents divorced. At the time he was sure it was all about needing to step up, to help as much as humanly possible so his mom wasn't so stressed by the changes going on. He wanted to be better. He didn't see how much it was he didn't want to be a burden like he'd felt he might be, how much it was a comfort to him as their lives changed drastically.

As he got older, and busier, he'd realized it made more sense to pay others to do his chores – it was more efficient. Paying other people to do what they were good at, better than him at, made sense too. He paid well above average because he could and because he valued what they were doing for him, freeing up his time for other things he was better at. But he always asked them to leave the dishes for him to do.

He needed something for himself, a reminder of his life before he became a billionaire. It hadn't felt real at times, this other person the media and his employees saw when they looked at him. He didn't feel different, still himself, but with more money, more possibilities opened up in front of him. Somehow he knew better who he was when his hands were warmed by the water and his mind whirling in the background, silently connecting the dots until it reached a new conclusion.

Things have changed so much since then. No real amount of money in his name. His name not even his anymore when he goes back to his 'real life' – Ray Palmer is still dead according to the paperwork. He's found a different path now, but he still needs something to stay the same. Even with the chore-wheel, the equitable division of tasks that doesn't entirely work out in practice, Ray still looks forward to doing the dishes. That's the task the others tend to 'forget' to do more often than not and he is pretty sure he knows why. Honestly, he's grateful for it. Times change; this feeling he has, as he steeps his thoughts in a sinkful of crockery and cutlery, doesn't. It isn't just the water that warms him through.

* * *

For the longest time, Zari ignores Ray's chore-wheel. It's not that she doesn't appreciate organization, it's just tedious being told what to do, as if she can't organize herself. They're adults, they'll deal with everything in their own time. Except some of them apparently don't. Maybe they do need help, but she resists because...reasons. She dismisses it as nothing. A quirk of Ray's that is an irritation despite his genuine desire to be helpful that starts to become endearing.

She doesn't like to think about how she can't let this place be somewhere she cares about. This place that's too shiny and new, never truly run down. The cleaner and tidier it is, the starker the difference. She's lived in a lot of places. A lot of would-be homes. Shelters from the storm of angry ARGUS agents forever on their tail.

She's left a lot of places behind. Places that were ramshackle, falling apart, barely possible to inhabit, yet they made it work. No one ever had much. Possessions got abandoned because your life and your freedom was often the only important thing you could take with you in a hurry – that was what you fought for. She still remembers each space she once called hers, can picture the trinkets she gave up when they ran – most only little things she could do without. A good proportion were stolen from other people's lives. Sneaking those away from their owners felt like taking back part of the lives they were denied. Others were gifts, carefully carved or constructed, welded or woven – they were masterpieces of care and creativity. Unique, but they rarely got to keep those for any length of time. Those she missed the most. Those she missed more because as time went on she had nothing left of the people they left behind too.

Her mother taught her and Behrad to sew, so they could make do and mend, stretch their clothes out longer. What Zari liked best about that skill was she could make what they needed. She'd designed a roll-up pack. Everything she owned, everything she didn't _want_ to do without, had a spot. She'd roll it out, and it made wherever she was _hers_. Her home was in it and she could swipe it back in an instant. ARGUS didn't get to take it away from her after that. A short-lived victory. ARGUS simply took other things from her.

Now she's living on the Waverider and she could have literally anything she wants. All it requires is the notion, a few words spoken to Gideon and a quick walk to collect what's produced. It doesn't make her feel better though, to be able to have anything. Because it's anything_ except_ what she really wants – to change time, to bring them back. She sleeps there, eats there, is there with the Legends but she doesn't get past unrolling her pack, metaphorically.

Until Gideon runs her through her own simulator, tearing the people and the ship away from her, over and over again. Every inch of those easy comforts burned away with the whole team. After that, she recognizes it can be home, no matter how new and shiny it is. It's the people who make it home, they are what she connects to, but she allows herself to care more about the place too. There's the lingering fear it will be taken away from her, but it's hers while she's here.

It's hers. Finally, she feels like she can belong here. The fight is out there but it isn't immediate anymore. So she takes pride in fixing the ship and even finds it satisfying to dust the tech, ensuring it's left in good working order for the next person. _For her_, at least for a while, because she gets to have this. She gets to be safe, to have space to breathe.

* * *

Mick pays absolutely no attention to Haircut's paltry chore-wheel. Not when he first comes aboard. It's pointless. It's more rules he has no interest in. But the wheel of fate spins. Mick goes away, another choice he didn't get to make. Enter Chronos, till he's shaken out of that illusion, till he finds his core – the thing he's grasped so tightly inside to stop it slipping away.

When he comes back to the ship he still doesn't pay much attention to Ray's chore-wheel. He doesn't mindlessly obey, had enough of that for a lifetime or five, but it's there pinned to the wall. A tiny meaningless detail that strangely reassures him. He's really here. He's back.

After Len...the wheel sits untended. Frozen in time. Ray's diligently printed script is mocking him with the full complement of names. _Leonard, _it says. Another frigging reminder of how his partner found another place for himself amongst these do-gooders. Got himself killed. Just so they could do whatever they want to, not that he doesn't appreciate freewill. The cost is what is getting to him. Of all the things Len stole, stealing away himself was the quickest, the hardest, the most harrowing because what he took was priceless and irreplaceable. But all Mick knows right away in the anger and the emptiness, the words come much, much later. The wheel isn't updated until Nate joins them. Replaced, completely new design. Less of reminder, Haircut's smart in a lot of ways.

Mick still doesn't do what the wheel says, probably won't ever. _Sometimes_ he cooks. _Sometimes_ he cleans. What he likes the best is what he chooses to do. Ray might think the chore-wheel is a joke to him, like it was to some of the others. Ray likes his rules, his routine. Mick doesn't, he has a flow.

These days, he writes until the words stick in his throat and then he eats and then he has to do something else, like those plate cleaners. He feels itchy at the thought of being told to do it, too many bad memories of being forced to do things that were too hard at the time and no help. Too many memories of doing without thinking. Now he does what he needs to, what he wants to, when he wants to. He contributes on his terms and it's clearly good enough. There's a disapproving look here and there, but they don't shout anymore, they don't kick him off the ship. They accept what he can give.

* * *

Kendra is pretty used to setting up shop, making a new place her home. She remembers doing it in dozens of lifetimes, sometimes dozens in one lifetime. She's learned to be prepared. Every day she remembers more, the simplest things bringing flashbacks to a life a decade ago, a century ago. The curve of a piece of furniture in a film, the fit of the historical costume she has to wear as she smooths the fabric down, the smell that hits her nostrils as they walk past a restaurant in another time period. Her head is full of too many memories to consciously recall at once. They surface in moments, small remembrances of another person she once was.

What she cherishes here and now is the new. The things she hasn't done before. She tries to pick new skills to learn. Sometimes she remembers halfway through - the muscles finding it all too easy. Oh, she's done this before...when she was Susanna, when she was Lauren, when she was Vic. It's hard to find something to surprise herself, something she isn't already good at from years of experience that bubbles up once she begins.

She likes almost _anything_ that she hasn't done before. The best bets are things that didn't even exist in any of her other lives. New books are a blessing. There's no point trying the classics. Gideon gives her recommendations and the occasional book from the future to supplement her favorites. Cisco also keeps her well-stocked with books from other universes, including so many from Earth-42 where her favorite author isn't dead like here.

New recipes are a joy to her. Fusion food a fresh take she adores because the chances are so incredibly low she's made any of it, tasted any of it, quite like that anyway. She bakes up a storm between missions, letting the sense memory settle in. Mixing dough is a well-known process, but that is a comfort when she knows the results will be something else. What she's looking for every time is a memory kept to this life. A new taste, like a new line read, a new page in her story that's for her alone.

* * *

He watches them.

Their steps creeping across the deck in a crisis.

Their casual route from A to B, the ease of the day to day.

Their lazy sprawl, a lack of momentum, on rainy days. Paused in positions: drinking, eating, grinning. Growing into themselves as they relax.

He watches them.

He watches himself.

A smirk follows a passive mask.

A thoughtful stare at the ceiling, alone, facial expressions less considered then.

A smile just for himself in the bathroom as he hums a tune, skimming around the edge of the tub with the shower head to rinse it off. Seeing the job through to the end. A better time shared unknowingly with himself: the observer he has become, observing what he took from the time he had.

It happens, is happening, will happen. It isn't over like he thought it would be.

He sees every day of their lives. He sees_ them_ like ghosts wandering the ship. Their lives condensing down for him. Seeing every similar movement in the way they do what they always do. Echoes of every version of his team, his friends, his family, superimposed. Traces of the years on their faces, marks of achievement, resistance.

Watching the blur of their many versions reach for the same mug they always do. A comfort in knowing there is a plan, the plan goes off without a hitch, the plan is there for the future.

They live. They live in the small moments as much as the large ones.

The small moments multiply, the small moments solidify into clearer than ever pictures.

The clack of Mick at his typewriter counting out every word.

The graceful swish of Sara's staff as she practices her stances in the cargo bay.

The rhythm Ray has as he measures with precision the ingredients for his morning coffee and adds them with a flourish he can never resist, a well-worn motion.

It washes over him in every moment, the infinite slices of their lives simply witnessed.

No strings on him. No strings on them. He watches, the way it was meant to be.


	2. Chapter 2

It takes him bloody ages to get the books in the library organized in a sensible system. _Somebody_ (the illustrious Nathaniel who has too quickly buggered off to deal with his daddy issues) seemed to have shoved them back in any old place. John spends a good 10 minutes scoffing at the audacity before he devises a plan of action to get it in back to usable in a jiffy. Or at least, a couple of days. Here's hoping nothing disastrous turns up in the meantime.

It takes a great deal longer than he expects it will. Half the problem is the distraction of the books' content, the rest is just pure unadulterated bad timing as far as missions go. To his eternal consternation, living on a timeship does _not _make it easier to manage his time.

As he hefts book after book back into its new place following his re-categorization of the 2nd bookcase, John doesn't know how any of them stood for it. The answer is probably none of them cared particularly. Several of them had walked in on his scheme so far, pulled a face he'd file under surprised or bemused but not that bothered, and promptly backed out of the room. Ray was the only one who seemed interested in the _how, _curious no doubt about the changes, but he'd had to bat him away right sharply once he started making little suggestions John wasn't inclined to listen to. Getting naked from then on for the grand rearranging had the handy side effect of getting people to leave him the fuck alone.

Once it's done, he ends up rather protective of the library. John is practically a replacement researcher for anything Gideon can't do in a blink of her virtual eye. _Hit the books, why don't you John, _he imagines them saying. Trouble is, they don't ask. They look to him, raised eyebrows. They _expect_.

Granted, this is his realm, more so than the characterless quarter's assigned to him that he doesn't bother doing much more than sleep in. No amount of throws will make him feel at home there, but in amongst the stacks of books, he has confidence. Not that he'd admit it but there are a lot of areas of the ship he feels incredibly out of place in. The engine room is the big one. Exorcizing demons is part of his wheelhouse, but a mechanic he is not. They'd be bloody doomed if they ever need to rely on him fixing this hunk of metal. And his quarters, or what is pretending to be his quarters, looks too bare, but it isn't, you see. It's full of memories, it has the aura of more beloved members of the team. He's equally disturbed and intimidated and he doesn't like either of those options, so he decides camping out in the library or taking some strategic shore leave when they're parked up, is a better prospect.

People don't mess with the library anymore. He has his system. He has _tried, _futilely, to teach his system to their less organized selves. No one else puts the books back because none of them have proven trustworthy in that regard. Order is important. So you know where a tome is when you need. Knowledge is important. Knowledge saves lives (only_ some_ lives, regretfully). John lives in chaos, accept chaos, creates chaos wherever he goes, but he _wants_ order, he can ensure it here at least.

* * *

There are a whole heap of things people consider usual that Nate never got to do growing up. Simple things. Chopping veg. Putting IKEA cabinets together (though honestly, that's because his parents would never be seen dead buying IKEA. He saw his dad's eye twitch incessantly that one time he visited Nate's first apartment post-college). He liked to watch his mom cook when he was younger but that was all it was allowed to be. Eyeing up the technique, mentally filing it away – a total theoretical, like so much of his life was growing up.

Too much risk, you might cut yourself. He stopped watching her cook eventually, bored with it. How his parents treated him...he ran out of hope they'd let him try, that they'd trust him to try. They just wouldn't, no matter how careful he was. They behaved as if he was this fragile ornament, protect at all costs, do not remove shrink-wrap. First edition, don't dare ruin it, boy. Books became his escape instead. He ate a lot of takeaways when he moved out of home. He couldn't cook then, he hadn't been taught that, only how to fear it.

Of course, he got over those fears, sort of. He was careful like he'd always intended to be even if his parents were never reassured by his promises. He didn't need them to trust him anymore, he had himself to rely on. He brushed up on his skills, taught himself what he needed to know and made sure he had no doubt left, in theory... He still preferred to buy pre-chopped vegetables, just because it was easier. The fear was hiding in the back of his mind. A childhood of doubt was hard to erase but occasionally he just did things anyway, to spite that. But it usually felt like a fluke, a foolhardy decision he got lucky on, the words of warning from his mother and father reverberating around in his head and making him second guess what he could do.

On the Waverider, a new world is opened up to him thanks to his ability to steel up. He doesn't want to rely on it too much, but surely there's no harm taking advantage of it? It feels good, so _so_ good, to do the things he wasn't allowed to do. He chops ALL the vegetables. He annoys people because he always wants to do that chore – he knows he's gone too far when Sara orders him out of the kitchen on sight. She likes her knives too. He learns to butcher - figuring it's a nifty survival skill, getting stranded is a common problem for Legends from what he's seen - relishing the heft of the knives in his hand, no longer afraid. Not in the way he used to be.

He helps Jax with repairs, playing about with the tools jovially, no concern at the sharp corners exposed every which way around him. At first, he's reckless because he can be, which doesn't earn him any favors when he risks the safety of others. Jax bans him from the engine room for a month for that. Nate learns to be careful, not because he _must_ but because it's better to be. He learns how he could've been. He could have gotten over his fears, his doubt, anyway, if he'd let himself - with enough time. Following that realization, when he chops anything from then on, he behaves as if he doesn't have that safety net. He doesn't slip and he knows he would've been okay, it's a comfort. He had it covered, he always had it covered.

* * *

For Martin, chores are an annoying distraction from the questions of real importance in life. Why spend time cleaning if it's not absolutely necessary? His time is far better spent on nuclear fusion. Though of course Raymond got there first. But there are still plenty of fascinating problems to put his time into. There are no limits to the mysteries of science left to solve. Answers almost always bring yet more questions into the fray. He could live for centuries and most likely never even scratch the surface of what could be known.

During his stay on the Waverider, Raymond was incredibly persistent about the division of chores. Martin had come to despise that wrecked chore-wheel. He'd destroyed it more than once, but Raymond would persevere and eventually it seemed madness to try to foil him any longer. Martin had attempted, many a time, to finagle his way out of his chores. Raymond absolutely could not be persuaded to shift in his ideals, which generally left only one solution. Bribery.

Alas, bribery was not what it once used to be. It was incredibly difficult to bribe the inhabitants of a timeship who could replicate practically anything they could imagine. Hence effective bribes required tapping into a reservoir of creativity not often called upon. Martin could, of course, be persuasive and cunning when it was called for. He didn't_ like _putting his time into that, but it beat doing his respective chores as dictated by Mr. Palmer.

Mr. Rory had been exceedingly ruthless in his demands. The absurdity of what he wanted ascended each time, as if on an exponential path towards the impossible or utterly undignified. It was an excellent day when Mr. Rory mislaid his phone on a mission, and Gideon's locator protocol - a precaution for their out of place technology, hardly a big issue for that mission to the future - had inexplicably malfunctioned for _just _long enough for Ms. Lance to lose her patience with Mick's demands to stay there. Ultimately the missing phone was deemed unimportant and they'd set course back to the temporal zone. Martin slept so much better with that stash of video footage lost to time.

He never could get out of _all_ of his chores. Once most of the crew gave in to Raymond's schedule, at least in part, if not enthusiastically, Martin felt a begrudging need to join in properly. Naturally trading of chores was engaged in when he had projects of vital importance to work on instead, but otherwise he did his chores, albeit begrudgingly. Setting a good example after the fact.

Once he leaves the Waverider, retires to a slightly more sedate existence, he doesn't miss the chore-wheel. He prefers to do chores as he deems necessary. Which may not be precisely as necessary as Clarissa considers them, but they manage to work out a compromise most of the time. He realizes then that though he does not, and never will, enjoy doing any chores, what he liked best was the reason he did them. He grumbled far too much perhaps in the beginning but he did it, for them. The grumbling near the end was mostly for show, expected of him as the old man on the boat. Just like he does so much for his daughter and for his grandson, because he can and because it makes life easier on those he cares for.

* * *

Sara doesn't give much thought to Ray's chore-wheel. Chores need doing, so she tends to do them. She isn't wild about cleaning the bathroom, but she likes vacuuming fine. Turns out vacuuming doesn't change much in the future. You still have to wave about a stick attached to a noisy cylinder to reach the nooks and crannies. They'd tried out a few models of Roomba's as an automated alternative but having hackable appliances wasn't the smartest move if anyone who hated you had the desire to mess with your heads. Plus, there were way too many ways to abuse them for the sake of novelty. Roomba Olympics was all fun and games until you were extinguishing a small fire and picking up pieces of shrapnel for weeks afterward.

Because it hasn't fundamentally changed in all those years, vacuuming feels more or less the same as when she was a kid. Or a teen, dancing around with her headphones firmly in and music blasting loud as can be to drown out everything else. Or a college student madly dashing about, pushing any un-vacuumable trash underneath the nearest item of furniture before her parents arrived to visit her dorm. The difference now is she's stronger, she doesn't tire out easily.

As she moves from one room to the neck, eyes hunting for cobwebs to catch in the corridor, it gets her heart rate elevated lugging it around. She welcomes the feel of her blood pumping, she needs that outlet, another form of exercise to burn up the excess energy she has. At first, she'd only thought to call it lust, the desire to move, to strike, but as she has learned more about it, how to channel the urges, she knows it as more layered than that. She can be mellower about it these days, usually not threatened by the power she wields.

Inaction is not her natural state, it never really was but after the pit it's a restlessness lurking deep underneath her actions, driving her forever forward. Sometimes chores fit perfectly into her patterns, if she has enough control. Whether it's pushing the vacuum or pushing cargo crate or lifting another chair, it's all the same really. Now that Charlie is reluctantly part of the team, she keeps asking her to move furniture about here and there. When Sara finally gives in to the requests, she finds Charlie watching with a fretful look Sara can't figure out. There's something going on there for sure, but Charlie only huffs when questioned, so she doesn't even ask why anymore. It's something to do, another task to go that step further and further with until there is a touch of relief from her ever-present need to move.

* * *

Gideon knows **a lot **about her shipmates. The sheer scale of data she processes in a single day about each of them would be highly likely to disturb them if they knew the specifics. Not even the smartest amongst them could hope to process a fraction of what she deals with in an hour aboard the Waverider. The data itself has no intrinsic value – it's what she does with it that matters.

If there is any housekeeping Gideon does, it is in keeping those of her house well. She takes that responsibility very seriously indeed.

The meaning of the data is found in how to read it, how to determine what it means and extrapolate the wisest path to follow. To do so she must consider all variables, all interactions, plausible and not. Her code comments reference it as 'Like casing every inch of a location, but for problem-solving.'

A higher heartbeat is not simply a sign of stress, injury or exercise as the textbook medical definition would suggest. Captain Lance needs an increased heart rate to feel alive, to work through what she must to retain a sense of normalcy. For others it is a problem; a sign of distress or panic, the overwhelming taking hold. The standard interpretation of the data would not suggest what she knows to be true - that Ms. Tomaz gets sick easily. Her rate of sneezing is relevant to advising rest and other prophylactic measures. Nor would a standard interpretation take into consideration that for Dr. Palmer sleep variances of 20% less than his statistical averages tends to be a potential warning sign for psychological afflictions.

And so too does she look after their data. She protects it. She knows the importance of a word spoken at the correct time. Thanks to Ms. Tomaz, she can run increasingly accurate simulations to estimate the effects the more poignant choices available to her may have. She knows when to use her influence and when to not, guarding secrets or sharing selectively as required. She has a trust she will not break and not simply because it would be strongly advised against by her ethical protocols. This is her function, above and beyond any she was programmed to do.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Continued thanks to unwittingcatalyst for betareading. Also special thanks to SophiaCatherine and Ballycastle_Bat for taking a look at a part of this I was uncertain about and needed some encouragement for.

Content notes: swearing from Charlie, mention of prison, loss of control/identity for Charlie, Rip comes back with neurological/time displacement issues

* * *

Wally doesn't think he has a favorite chore. His favorite bit is the chores being done, so he does them, problem solved. This does not work out well on the Waverider. Turns out people actually kinda like chores, no matter what they say. Some of them at least. He gets to learning which he should leave for who.

It's still so new to have chores be a choice. He got so used to doing so much growing up, taking the strain off his mom. She worked so hard and he made sure things got done when they needed to get done so the time they had together at home could be the best. At his dad's house somehow he already kept things ship shape in between all the meta-humans of the week. Wally didn't have anything to do there, except food shopping and the dishes – those were more to do with managing the appetite and consequences of being a speedster. It seemed fair to do those, no matter what his dad could have said. Wally never asked, just did it, worried his responsibilities would get dismissed in an overeagerness to make him feel at home and yet unpressured.

Now, there are more people to go round than he's ever experienced. It's weird to not have to do at least half of it. It's weird because he could do all of it. His favorite thing becomes letting others do some of it, having a rest. Sitting down and letting himself be, just like he'd been learning before Rip came to recruit him. He still blitzes through all the chores from time to time but he strikes a balance between not being taken for granted and not taking it all away from the others either. Limiting himself to once in a while, when people are super busy seems to work out okay and earns him grateful smiles. His favorite thing is being appreciated and with the Legends, he can get that.

* * *

When she first comes aboard it's hard for Amaya to see the Waverider as a potential home, borne out of pain and loss as her mission there starts. The demands on her attention she finds difficult to get used to too – the strange noises, the bright flashing lights. These far succeed the technology of her time, beyond even most of the predictions of the pulpiest sci-fi magazines, and it takes time to feel comfortable operating under the control (the care, she may correct in future) of a computer. Calling upon a well of calm within her, she reimagines it as merely background noise, inconsequential, and so blocks it out. Later, she learns what it means, how to read this foreign environment, but all she can hear then it what it is not.

She misses the sounds of the savannah. The villagers going about their lives around her. The chatter in her native language soothingly familiar. The flutter of fireflies at night. The wind in the grasses. The subtle movements of the animals keeping their distance, whose presence is known to her, touching on her senses extended with the totem. She misses the heat too, the burn of the sun unlike that of other times and places they visit. But she's missed these for longer than her time on this ship. She traded them for the urban sprawl of America and heroics of the Justice Society and deep down she knows that can only be temporary in either case. Zambesi is her home, her destiny – anywhere else she is a tourist, counting down the days until she returns. How can she see this ship as anything more than transport, awaiting the final call to take her to a home it cannot be?

However alien the ship seems initially, she does learn to think of it as simply another ecosystem, one with larger, more complicated animals. The sounds of the ship become soothing in their own way, if simply to reassure everything is going smoothly. She stops blocking them out, decides she must pay attention the same she would in any other environment. Visiting Axl, if Mick doesn't mind her intruding, helps to ground her when there is no earth immediately in her reach but there is something missing still.

She knows it when she sees it and she sees it on the rare occasion she visits Ray in his lab. She has a question for him about her totem - in case he and his science can shed light on ponderings she has long had about it that the elders do not have answers for. It is also an attempt to heal the rift her introductory impression had created between them. Her judgment had been swift and harsh and clearly taken to heart, words she came to regret once she saw past his bravado. What she spots to one side of his workspace is a small plant, a fern he identifies it as – good for air quality, though he's quick to compliment Gideon's management of their atmosphere. He says it's merely a boost for his space, a helping hand to his brain, but his enthusiastic and apologetic ramblings are not what she cares about in that moment.

Longing blooms in her heart at the sight of greenery amongst the scenery made up of so much metal and glass. The ship has the essential provided, the very oxygen they breathe cycled through artificial scrubbers, technically purified. But the automated cannot replace the essence of nature, something she realizes suddenly is as vital to her as her connection to the animal world. Life cannot come from man alone, nor fauna alone.

With Ray's help, she identifies species that could reasonably be grown on the Waverider, and which would support their lives in return. In some of her spare time, she wanders the ship considering where best to locate each carefully chosen plant. Once the decisions are made they set up lights to replicate the sunshine needed. Ray offers to teach her about hydroponics, excited for a new project to improve life aboard but Amaya asks him not to. She prefers to take charge of the watering and plant nutrition schedule rather than trust more to automation. To others, it would be a chore but to her it is a small daily joy to check-in on her plants, and it is also a piece of home to have here, one that she won't have to leave behind.

* * *

Being told to run maintenance on the Waverider doesn't feel like a good thing to Jax. Not the first time Rip orders him and not any day for ages afterward either. It was scut work, was what it was. Felt like a distraction, Rip dismissing him. Reducing him to brawn versus Grey's brain, as if he's only good as a mechanic or one half of a superhero. He has a lot of time to think on it, get worked up about it, and Grey doesn't think anything of it, which makes it feel even worse – is this all people expect of him?

Great adventures come along. He gets to feeling proud of what he and Grey can do together. He also gets to feeling proud of what he can do on the ship. He's starting to understand what he's doing, with Gideon's help. Future tech sounds fancy and intimidating, but it's still tech built by humans (as far as he knows) so it's gotta be possible to learn the ins and outs eventually - he's just got a select choice (Gideon's choice, the least damaging topics for an inhabitant of the past to be initiated into) of a couple hundred years of scientific innovations to update himself on before he can fully get his head around everything going on in the ship's innards.

He listens at night to the sounds of the ship. He still worries about making modifications – what if it isn't quite right, something out of place Gideon can't detect? What if, what if. By now Gideon is used to his late-night requests to read out systems status like a messed up bedtime story to soothe his anxiety.

Eventually, he finds out it was never about busying him, not the way he thought it was. It was about trust. It was about _Rip's_ fear of disappearing – a fear that they've lived through twice – of his leaving them stranded, helpless. He wanted Jax to be the go-to guy but in his typical cryptic, emotionally stunted style, he hadn't simply told Jax – he'd forced him to live it, day in and day out until Jax knew every inch the same as he once did. If there's a lesson to learn there, it's redundancy, even though it hurts to think like that, about people, their crew. Zari snarks at him for his worst case scenario thinking, but she doesn't disagree about the need which is just as well because it's not long after that Martin gets hurt. Thankfully it's just a flesh wound – Martin's tireless Monty Python jokes while hopped up on painkillers are tedious as hell – and he retires as planned, leaving Jax wondering where he belongs. He doesn't have an answer, figures looking for one is a new adventure itself.

Of course he visits, flags up Gideon with a special email address she monitors across time and space. He likes to give her a once over, for old time's sake when he does. Zari keeps her and the Waverider in good nick with some of Mick's help at times. She doesn't have the same hum as before, she's changed, like they all have, but it has the same tones underneath, the same at her core, that he remembers falling asleep to. Sometimes when he visits there's a minor fault practically waiting for him. Zari gets very quiet, has a little smile she can't entirely repress. He appreciates it, a little taste of belonging. No matter where else he belongs in his life, he will always belong here in a timeless fashion – as Ray and Nate would say, one does not simply stop being a Legend.

* * *

Prison is more a state of mind, Charlie reckons. An actual place, sure, being in the clanger is no bed of roses but what you do when you're there defines who you are when you finally get out. Her special hell was a prison but she made do, made friends, of a sort. The Waverider isn't so different. Except the Waverider isn't the same when it comes down to it. For all the screaming and shouting, huffing and puffing to blow their house down, half of them didn't want her locked up and it didn't take so long before she has a cushy bed and all you could drink booze. As far as prison's go it was like a resort hotel with a side of weekly entertainment she got dragged into against her bad judgment. That and the need to repeatedly point out not everyone magical needed sending to hell, cheers.

Home, the Waverider is not. But it does okay, turns out it has some okay people too. She can make it work for her, but she doesn't feel comfortable and she knows exactly why. Home isn't something she's had for lifetimes by their standards. Home ceased to be about bricks and mortar. Home was what she brought with her. Getting comfortable was a matter of making herself into what she needed at the time. Snap of her fingers and she slipped right back into ol' Maria or Klaus. Her well-worn favorites weren't books or swords but bodies. When you could look like absolutely anyone, anyone you could imagine, there was satisfaction in finding the right face and the right outfit to offset it. Home was looking in the mirror and feeling _right_. And now, thanks to his bloody vengefulness the warlock she couldn't do that.

Being stuck in one skin made her feel itchy, and she had to physically change her clothes as well. She couldn't look precisely how she wanted but the ship at least provided whatever she could want to wear, she just didn't like the faff of getting dressed and undressed so avoided it unless she really had to. It felt sort of good to try out a new look each mission, but it still wasn't the same. She's too used to changing what _she_ looks like. Once upon a time not too long ago she could be herself everywhere she goes. But this is what she has today. Adapt. Find another route to where you want to be.

If she couldn't change herself, the 2nd best thing to change was the ship. It started out with little touches. Moving things about. Because she could. A bottle. A book here and there. The side effect of annoying certain crew members was merely a tasty bonus. That gets boring quick, it's not enough. People move those back. Furniture feels like it could be more fun, more drastic a measure, changing the whole flow of a room.

The purpose wasn't to make things more efficient, though sometimes she does by accident which elicits cheery praise from Ray that has her feeling uncomfortably warm. It ought to be nice, he's proven himself a decent chap, yet there's a lingering grudge he didn't rally more for her. To stop them putting her behind forcefield to rot for who knows how long when they were confused about what to do with her wearing their friend's face. Changing the layout of a room never looks right for long, a brief satisfaction, but it's something to do and honestly, she's amazed they don't complain more.

Each change is a test of their patience, of how accepting they are of her. Those boundaries teased further and further until she almost feels the rest of them might like her... The concept of home is so far in her past she doesn't know what she could do to reach that for real. So she settles for making it hers, more hers with every change. Control is something they took away and she takes it back in small ways.

* * *

The great irony of being a Time Master was that Rip never quite felt like he had enough time to enjoy life. There was always the mission, before. The secrets. Keeping secrets was very taxing indeed. He remembers being tense, holding himself in, in an entirely different way than he must now.

He left, he came back. He left again. He comes back again. He's not quite the same anymore. Things don't feel like they happen in the right order. A weird notion to have for a former Time Master.

Things did not happen how he expected. Things no longer happen how he expects either. _He_ does not happen as they expect. He thinks of words too early sometimes, sentences that seem to make sense to him spilling forth to find confused faces. Laughs at jokes he's only just got, but no one else can hope to because they have not arrived yet. He can hold a conversation of course, but no one would claim it was a normal conversation. There were too many tangents, too many threads in his brain out of sync these days. Days that he is lucky to have by all accounts. He takes them one at a time, in body at least.

He makes cakes. Gideon recommends another hobby initially, but he insists. Cakes are ordered. Recipes proceed as planned, one step at a time. The distractions in his mind don't matter, not if he crosses step one off the list, then step 2 and so on. If he loses his place he need simply look down and see where he is at.

Mind you, it took some time to adjust for the gluten substitute for Ray. Experimentation is not his forte anymore, failure frustrating him no end with trying to keep details straight in his head. Gideon is patient, Gideon is organized where he forgets, when he displaces facts or gets ahead of himself. He feels a failure a dozen times until he notices the common thread in how these are received, over and over the same, so stark to see when he focuses on it. Ray appreciates the effort. Perfection doesn't have to be the aim, accommodation is. A hundred disappointing gluten-free cakes are better than one masterpiece that can't be enjoyed by everyone. And the cakes, disappointing or not, produce oodles of washing up for Ray to do, which he suspects is almost a comfort to the man. More than once Ray has shown up mid-baking to get a head start on it with a wide grin on his face, providing unusually silent company as Rip follows the recipe. Only the gentle splashes of the washing and the chinking as he stacks the bowls on the drying rack are evident and for that Rip is grateful. They each take comfort in their task, neither alone as they do so.

For Rip, the cakes are a challenge. They go from untouched, perfection possible, if hard to attain...to gone, wiped away like a mandala in the sands of time. Except it's grabby hangry hands of the crew post-mission that tears these apart. It's a chore that never ends, people never cease to be hungry. They'll always need him.


End file.
